Alan Styler

Alan Arthur Styler (1 October 1925 – 1 September 1970) was an English opera singer, best known for his performances in baritone roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

After service in the Grenadier Guards during the Second World War, Styler joined D'Oyly Carte in 1947, where he spent his entire two-decade career. Some of his key roles were the Counsel in Trial by Jury, Strephon in Iolanthe, Pish-Tush in The Mikado, Giuseppe in The Gondoliers, Mr. Cox in Cox and Box, Grosvenor in Patience and the Lieutenant of the Tower, in The Yeomen of the Guard. He recorded most of these roles with the company. Styler was particularly popular with both audiences and his fellow members of D'Oyly Carte. He married fellow D'Oyly Carte player Vera Ryan.

Styler was born in Redditch, Worcestershire, the son of Arthur Styler and Madeleine née Cook. He had a sister, Iris M. Styler (born 1919), and a brother, John Harold S. Styler (1923–1994). Alan Styler studied singing as a teenager and joined the Grenadier Guards at the age of seventeen. After leaving the service in 1946, he pursued his aspirations to become a professional singer. He joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company chorus in 1947 and soon was assigned his first role, Antonio in The Gondoliers.

In 1948, Styler was also given the small role of Second Yeoman in Yeomen of the Guard and was made an understudy for the "juvenile" Gilbert and Sullivan baritone roles. He began, in 1949, to fill in frequently as the Counsel in Trial by Jury (otherwise as the Associate), Strephon in Iolanthe, Pish-Tush in The Mikado, and Giuseppe in The Gondoliers and also to regularly play the roles of Mr. Cox in Cox and Box, and Grosvenor in Patience. He continued to perform all these roles through October 1952, when he took a three-month leave because of illness. In 1953, Styler yielded the roles of Pish-Tush and Grosvenor, but added the role of Richard Cholmondeley, the Lieutenant of the Tower, in Yeomen.